App-V Sequencer Question

Hi. We have been testing out the App-V Sequencer (v4.5) and we would like to know what others out in the field think of this tool. From what we have seen it is terrible. Almost nothing packages the first time through and you have to do a lot of work to get anything to package. It is just as time consuming as what we are trying to replace.....Wise Scripts and MSI packages.

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I usually see around 90% or better package with App-V. Some say the real overall metric should be a bit lower but I've seen a complex application set from an engineering firm have 99.5% success. I guess it depends who you have sequencing and what your application set looks like.

In terms of effort I find that a well oiled / skilled packaging team can average eight hours packaging time per package. With App-V you should see about four to six hours per package.

Thanks. My issue is this: I have taken 6 apps and I packaged each with App-V. It was a total pain in the neck and each required hours of tweaking. I then ran the same 6 apps through the Altiris SVS package tool. All 6 packaged the first time and all 6 combined tool me less than 2 hours. So it was 4 days of work Vs 2 hours of work. And that is not an exaggeration.

I am trying to promote App-V at work but I don't want to promote something that does not save us any time in packaging. Why use App-V if it is still a hassle to work with?

So I would like to hear from more of you out there and what you think of App-V and how easy/hard it is to package with.

I've done bake offs before and they are hard to do without large application sets to test in order to get good averages. I've found App-V, SVS and ThinApp to be in the same ballpark overall for compatibility with applications. In the end you should pick the tool that you are comfortable with using for your application set. I can't say I've been on a disaster App-V implementation with extremely low success rates but choosing a technology should be something that is tailored for the organization. All I can say is judge the technologies based on the criteria that is important to you and select whatever technlogy comes out on top after testing and scoring the technologies.

I like applications to follow users and ActiveUpgrade so I am a fan of a pure SoftGrid design. SCCM has BITS which is nice but I think organizations moving forward want software to follow users and be dynamically available which the Mangement Server does so well. I am hoping the SCCM team sees the importance of incorporating more of the behaviors / technologies that the native App-V Client / Management Server perform today. I don't think the SCCM integration is bad but the solution will be dictated by requirements which I think you need to identify going in then the decision is much more clear.